Ourabay Hotel Apartamento — Hotel in Albufeira

This hotel was a good base for our 4 days in Portugal. We were travelling as a group of 15 lads for a Stag do.||The first thing to make note of is there is a £300 deposit per room, you are also made to sign a contract abiding to the hotel rules, the rules are things such as quiet time between the hours of Midnight and 8am (which I didn't think was unreasonable). You can understand why they ask people for the deposit too because there was another larger stag party in the hotel and they were ballooning around jumping on sun loungers and breaking them - luckily the group I was with were all good lads and are tame compared to others.||One thing which we did notice, even if you are talking at a quiet level the hotel is a marble material so it echoes right down the hallway. I could hear some of my mates from outside of the hotel just talking normally - one of the group actually got a 'warning' for a loud conversation when they were sat down having a coffee. So as a top tip - whisper if you want to have a conversation at night.||The pool was ice cold, but we did take a dip in it but you couldn't have a prolonged swim. There is a kiddy pool but it looked a little grim. The pool table was out of order. Overall it was a nice place to chill out through the day. The bar staff were also two lovely ladies who were happy to help.||The rooms of the hotel are large spacious rooms and the cleaners were in everyday, you could smell the cleaning products they had used when you walked into the room which was a nice feeling. The views from the room aren't the greatest but again if you're using this as a base to sleep then you're not really sat outside on the balcony.||The hotel is a short walk to the New town (less than 5 minutes) and only around 6/7 euros in an Uber to the old Town.||I'm not sure if you can get food at the hotel and i'm not even sure if the bar inside the hotel build is open so I can't comment on these.||To Summarise:||- £300 deposit for each room when you're in a group|- Rules have to be followed or you get warnings|- Talking after midnight you must keep to a whisper because the hotel echoes|- rooms cleaned daily|- close to both new town and old town|- not sure if food is available within the hotel||Overall - Good clean base to stay, with food and...

Ourabay Hotel Apartments is an absolute NO GO !!|Dirty, Noisy, and poorly managed by staff and management. There were so many things wrong. |Upon check in, we were charged additional $20 for our spouses. We drove there with a car, so we parked downstairs but the doors locked to the parking at 5pm ?? The one elevator was not working and 2 cleaning staff asked “What’s the problem?” They got in and were stationary for 5 min. |The bidet and tub did not drain well. Used the bidet in the morning and 5 hours later, it was had not drained. |If you used the shower, you came out to a sauna of steam and fog !! The pool looked appealing, but you could not use the pool or hot tub because it’s winter. |We woke up to noise at 8 am from the gardener working outside, according to the day clerk. He said it was not maintenance crew and could do anything. |The kitchen looked ok, but there was no dish soap to use at all. This would lead me to believe the dishes and cutlery are all dirty with bacteria. We avoid any use of dishes or cutlery. |It is noisy at all times of the day and night. People talking, heavy object being dropped, furniture moving over the floors, TV noise due to thin walls from old 40-50 year standards. |The entire facility is very outdated and the Booking rating of 8.6 or TripAdvisor 4.0 is shocking to say the least. It should be well below 5 or 2 star !!|I’m shocked that those staying are satisfied with...

hotel itself is nice. good location as only a 5 minute walk to new town and 25 minutes to old town or less than 5 euros for an uber. pool staff and food is lovely. however would definitely not recommend especially if travelling in groups as young adults or teenagers the hotel will charge you a 300 euro deposit on arrival which is only given back on the basis of following certain rules however the security guard is miserable and will find any possible reason to ensure you do receive your deposit back. we spoke to many people staying at the hotel who also were having the same issue of the security guard banging on doors and constantly threatening them of not receiving their deposit back as well as an older couple who were completely shocked that we had to pay a deposit as they did not have to so. we stayed in july and had similar experience as other reviews whereby the security guard accused my friend of lying about staying in the hotel as she accidentally said the wrong room number and spoke rudely towards her in which the following day we received a warning based on apparently being rude to staff which i don't believe was the case but regardless in a previous response from the hotel isnt it acceptable for rude behaviour to be reciprocated? this hotels aim seems to be to ruin holidays...